Archive for August, 2016

It has now been a two years since the Supreme Court rendered its now infamous Alice v. CLS Bank decision. It is safe to say that the Alice decision has had a profound impact on software patent enforcement, both at the Federal Circuit and in the Federal district courts.

Here is a summary of Federal Circuit Section 101 software eligibility decisions. As you will see, very few software patents have been upheld by the Federal Circuit in the last few years.

Deriving a composite indicator of reliability that is an indicator of power grid vulnerability from real time measurements or computations of measurements from the data grid as well as non-power grid data received from the non-grid data source

No

SiRF Technology Inc v. International Trade Commission (2010)

6,417,801

6,937,187

Processing of GPS signals

—Methods

Yes

Patents in Suit Involve Technological Feature/Operation of a Computer Display/Rendering System

Morning Consult last week published an informative article from David Kappos, former under secretary of commerce and director of the United States Patent and Trade Office.

Mr. Kappos continues to warn about the overly broad application of abstract idea exemption applied by the Supreme Court in Alice v. CLS Bank, that “arbitrarily untethers patent protection from the merits of a given invention.” He believes that through Alice’s progeny, “we are sending a destructive message that will affect all software‑reliant industries, including life sciences, transportation and agriculture: The United States is no longer a hospitable place to invest in heavy-weight software innovation.” If you care about supporting innovation in the United States, take a minute and read his entire article: https://morningconsult.com/opinions/terrible-twos-state-innovation-two-years-alice-v-cls-bank/.